Naruto: The Orange Beast
by steeltoedsandal
Summary: Due to an unfortunate training accident, Naruto Uzumaki is brought up under the tutelage of the most eccentric man in Konoha, Might Guy. How will Naruto's growth as a ninja be affected? Will Naruto get along with his teammates? And will he be able to become the Hokage? Original idea for story goes to VoltBlast. Naruto U. and Team Nine.
1. Team Selection Day

**A/N #1: The original idea for this story belongs to VoltBlast. Thanks for letting me take this cool idea and run with it.**

**A/N #2: This story will mostly follow the canon manga storyline, but Naruto will have new adventures as well, which I am very excited for. Please bear with me, I will update when I can, as often as I can. I plan for some romance and fun things later on, but not yet. Naruto is just a young twelve-year old boy, after all.**

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, not me. If I had the rights to Naruto... _*drools*._ On to the story!

Chapter 1: Team Selection Day

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Naruto Uzumaki was feeling extremely frustrated. It was his first day as an official genin of Konoha, and all he had done was sit in a classroom all day waiting for his sensei to show up! He had sat through all the other teams being announced and their respective sensei coming to the classroom to pick them up. He cursed his rotten luck. Sakura-chan had gotten paired with Sasuke Uchiha and the new kid from Mizu, Kou Nagase on Team 7. Naruto would have given up ramen for a month if he could trade places with either of them! He even had to sit through the pathetic prank they had set up for when their sensei eventually arrived around noon.

"If I had to wait on my sensei to show up for three hours, there's no way I would have let him off that easy. Instead of a stupid eraser falling on his head, that silver haired weirdo with the mask would have received three full water balloons on his head when he walked in," Naruto grumbled to himself.

Iruka-sensei had told Naruto that he was filling an unexpected vacancy on his new sensei's team. So Naruto reasoned that he had to wait until his stupid sensei showed up, otherwise he wouldn't be placed on a team. Naruto was definitely going to risk anything that would prevent him from becoming a ninja, so he just sighed and put his head on the desk, bored out of his twelve-year old mind. The young blonde glanced up at the clock on the wall. TWO P.M! His sensei was going to pay for when he finally arrived! Well, that was if he arrived at all.

Naruto scanned the classroom for anything that could be used to prank his sensei for being so late. His eyes fell on the eraser from earlier.

_'No, that was done already. I have to go bigger and better than that,'_ thought the young ninja. Then he saw the chalk next to the eraser.

"Perfect!" Naruto grinned. He retrieved two sticks of chalk from the board, sat down at his desk, and went to work. He started grinding the chalk down into a fine powder. With how frustrated he was at being left here all day, Naruto crushed the chalk to a fine dust within minutes. He gathered all the chalky dust and gathered it into a compact shape. Once there, he poured all of the powder into one of the many little cherry bombs that he carried with him. Naruto had discovered these miniature explosives were useful in all sorts of situations, weren't lethal, could be filled with whatever substance you pleased, and were especially great for pranks. So Naruto placed the chalk dust filled tools in perfect position on the door frame. When it was opened, the chalk bomb would fall on his unsuspecting sensei, covering his face and uniform in chalk dust. It would be comedy gold!

The young prankster returned to his seat, satisfied with his work and grinned with anticipation. Naruto waited and waited, but his sensei still didn't show up. Disappointed, Narrator's thoughts migrated back to the other teams that were selected. He knew that there were 28 students including him, and there were nine teams. Everyone was selected for a team but him. The young genin wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that he was the nine tails' Jinchuuriki.

_'Iruka sensei saved me yesterday, and didn't care that I was the Nine Tails, so that can't be it. Why did I get singled out again?' _Naruto wondered_. 'Who did I piss off this time?'_

Naruto racked his brain for people who held grudges against him for pranks he had pulled, but couldn't think of anyone who would make his life more hell than it already was. He sighed in defeat, and reviewed the events of the day. The blonde contemplated the previous teams selected that day. The blonde didn't really know anybody else besides the people on teams seven, eight, and ten.

Team eight was comprised of Hinata Hyuuga, Kiba Inazuka, and Shino Aburame. Naruto didn't really have anything against those three, except for Kiba. That guy seriously got on his nerves sometimes. Not as much as Sasuke though. No one got on his nerves as much as Sasuke did. Naruto couldn't figure out what Sakura saw in him.

_'The really shy girl, the super introverted weirdo, and the loud annoying dog boy all on one team,'_ thought Naruto absentmindedly. _'I'm glad that I'll be on a different team than Kiba.'_ He felt a little bad about Shino and Hinata having to deal with him, but dismissed the thought quickly.

Naruto moved on to team ten, the other team that he knew people on, team ten. Team ten's members were Shikamaru Nara, Ino Yamanaka, and Choji Akimichi. He didn't know them all that well. Shikamaru was lazy, Choji ate a lot, and Ino was just another Sasuke fan girl. They knew each other since their parents made the famous Ino-Shika-Cho combination.

_'They've all been friends forever. Of course they would be put on the same team,'_ reasoned the young genin.

"So who in the hell is my mystery sensei?! AND WHY ARE THEY SO LATE?!" Naruto grumbled.

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

Startled, Naruto turned to see a green-clad shinobi burst through the door with a forceful flying kick, nearly knocking it off of its hinges as he rocketed into the room. A side effect of the sudden and forceful move was that the chalk Naruto had painstakingly set up fell harmlessly to the ground. Cursing his ridiculously rotten luck, the young genin turned to see a man with the thickest eyebrows he had ever seen smiling brightly right at him.

Now for Naruto, this was the last straw. First, he had been forced to wait in a classroom for over FIVE HOURS by himself with no food or anything to keep him busy. Then on top of being late, his new sensei ruined his awesome prank by bursting through the door and wasting a perfectly good chalk bomb. Last, but not least, this bushy-browed, green-clad, bowl-headed IDIOT was daring to smile at him after what he had been through! Naruto growled menacingly.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?! DO YOU EVEN KNOW HOW LONG I'VE BEEN WAITING?! AND WHY THE HELL ARE YOU STILL SMILING AT ME?!" Naruto screamed.

The green-clad shinobi just grinned wider. "I AM MIGHT GUY! AND I AM LOOKING FOR ONE UZUMAKI NARUTO! IS THAT YOU?" he bellowed.

"Yeah, that's me. So? What do you want with me?" Naruto answered back angrily.

"Well Naruto, I'm your new sensei! Welcome to Team 9! Here is your welcome gift!" Might Guy produced a package. "Go on, open it!" Guy said excitedly.

Naruto skeptically looked up at the giddy Jonin, then back down at the bundle. It was wrapped in nondescript brown paper with rope tied across it vertically and horizontally. The young blonde rarely received presents since he lived alone and was hated by almost the entire village, and the few presents he did receive were from the Third Hokage, who didn't give out gifts very often. So Naruto didn't have a second thought as he tore into the packaging. The paper yielded to an orange uniform identical to Might Guy's, except with yellow leg warmers. Naruto's eyes lit up, all anger forgotten. It was destiny for him to be on this man's team!

"Wow! You even got this for me in my favorite color? Why?" Naruto questioned.

"This is going to be your new training uniform, Naruto. And I heard from Iruka that you like the color orange. So it was simple, really," Guy said nonchalantly.

The young blonde held his new uniform up with awe. "Thanks Guy-sensei, I love it! Orange is my favorite!" Naruto exclaimed happily.

The bushy-browed jonin grinned. "Well take this as an apology for showing up late, and I'm happy to have you on the team. We'll see what you're made of tomorrow. Show up at training field #19 at eight A.M., and you will start your training, and you'll get to meet your teammates!"

Naruto nodded excitedly. His new sensei didn't seem like a bad guy. Sure he was a little weird, looked kind of funny, and showed up late, but he definitely made up for it with that awesome gift. The young blonde vowed to make a good impression and train hard for his new teacher. Naruto was still very curious about why he was singled out, as well as why there was an empty spot on this youthful man's team.

"U-Um sensei?" began Naruto nervously.

"Yes, what is it my pupil?" Guy responded.

"Why me? There was a whole class of new genin that got put on teams. Iruka-sensei told me I was a replacement for an unexpected vacancy. What happened? Is that person ok? Are they coming back? Will I have to give up this uniform?!" the young blonde panicked, clutching the uniform to his chest.

Might Guy chuckled. "Calm down, Naruto. I know you have lots of questions for me, but I need you to wait until tomorrow. I can say that you are going to be on my team for the foreseeable future, Naruto. And you won't have to give up the uniform, even if something happens. It's a gift," the jonin finished with a smile.

Naruto felt his eyes water at the unexpected kindness. "T-T-THANK YOU GUY-SENSEI!" he cried with joy.

"No problem, Naruto. Now I expect you to work extremely hard. Take the rest of the day off, and remember; meet at training field #19 at eight tomorrow morning," he stated.

The genin nodded frantically. "Yes Guy-sensei, I'll be there." Unable to hold his tears back any longer, Naruto rocketed out of the room to dry his now free-flowing tears of joy.

_'I can't believe it! I'm finally going to be a real ninja! AND MY SENSEI IS AWESOME!_' Naruto celebrated internally as he raced toward Ichiraku's.

The Green Beast of Konoha couldn't help but smile at the youthful enthusiasm of his new pupil. _'He is very youthful indeed_,_'_ he thought to himself. "It must have been really rough for him growing up for Naruto to react like that to my simple gift,' he reflected sadly. _'Hopefully I'll do right by him as his sensei. I'm definitely not perfect, though.'_

The jonin kicked himself mentally. He couldn't keep beating himself up over Lee's accident. All of his students were counting on him to be their strong teacher, and he vowed not to let them down. He had to stay strong for all of his students, and especially for Lee. Might Guy gathered himself, sighed, stepped out of the classroom and headed to the hospital.

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**Feel free to give me any sort of feedback or ask any questions you may have. I'm always open to suggestions, and I'm always trying to improve. Thanks again to my beta for setting my grammar straight.**

**Steeltoedsandal**


	2. New Teammates

**A/N: Here's the new chapter. I hope you enjoy it.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I would make more awesome fight scenes. Well, at least try to.**

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Naruto was starting to feel like he had made a terrible mistake. Looking down at his bright orange leotard provided by his new sensei, Might Guy, he was now regretting agreeing this very itchy decision. He loved his new orange training outfit, but after the first 30 minutes of wearing it, he felt bored and very uncomfortable. He had only agreed to it because he thought that no one else would accept him as a ninja! All Naruto wanted was to make sure that he secured his first team assignment. Considering how the rest of the village treated him, Naruto didn't want to take any chances on ANYTHING that would risk his career as a ninja. So Naruto just cursed his luck, and his itchy uniform.

Guy-sensei had told him to report to training field #19 at 8 AM the next day to meet his new team. Naruto decided to try and make a good first impression and impress the "Green Beast of Konoha" by showing up for his first day an hour early. Plus, he wanted to ask him a few questions that weren't answered yesterday.

As Naruto approached the entrance to the training field, he started to hear some peculiar noises. Deciding not to take any chances, he pulled out two kunai from his weapons pouch. The young blonde took a deep breath, and calmed his nerves. Peeking his head around the entrance to investigate, Naruto spotted his new sensei doing the weirdest training exercise he had ever seen. Might Guy was balancing on his hands facing a rather battered looking tree stump. The odd part was that while he was in the handstand, he aimed powerful kick after kick into the stump.

Naruto gulped. 'What in the world have I gotten myself into?'

Naruto hurriedly pocketed his kunai. He didn't want to show how nervous he was to his new sensei. Naruto took another deep breath. The young genin realized that Guy was so engrossed in his training that he wouldn't be noticed unless he made his presence known in an extremely noticeable manner.

Naruto cleared his throat. "GUY-SENSEI! YOUR NEW TEAM MEMBER HAS ARRIVED! I'M HERE TO BE THE BEST NINJA EVER! PLEASE TEACH ME!"

Guy, noticing Naruto for the first time, flipped out of his handstand and landed right in front of Naruto. Then he began "EXCELLENT! MY FIRST PUPIL HAS ARRIVED! MY YOUTHFUL FLAMES BURN BRIGHT THE SIGHT OF YOU HERE EARLY FOR EXTRA TRAINING! EXPECIALLY IN THE OFFICIAL TRAINING UNIFORM! HOW YOUTHFUL!"

Naruto stood stunned. He thought that he was loud, but his new sensei had nearly blown his eardrums out. Guy-sensei was on a whole other level! Naruto decided to try and limit the shouting matches; because there was absolutely no way that he would be able to top that. Shaking his head, Naruto remembered he still had to make a good first impression.

"Yes Guy-sensei", Naruto replied confidently. "I am very umm... youthful." What else could he be anyway? Naruto had turned twelve only recently. Then the youthful blonde remembered the many questions that he had from yesterday.

"Iruka-sensei told me that I was replacing somebody. Who was he talking about?" the young genin inquired.

"His name is Rock Lee, Naruto. He is injured, and according to the doctors, he won't be getting better anytime soon," he finished bitterly.

"Ummm... sorry sensei. I didn't know," Naruto frantically tried to explain.

"That's ok Naruto, there's no way you could have known. You just came out of the academy," reassured the jonin.

Seeing his sensei's troubled expression, Naruto decided to try and cheer him up. "He'll eventually recover right? The accident couldn't have been that bad, right?

The green clad ninja shook his head."Well Naruto, I have faith that he'll be back, but I think he will need a specialist to look at his injuries to make sure. As for the accident itself, I tried to show Lee an advanced taijutsu technique too early. Lee pushed himself more than he was supposed to and before I could stop him, he was crying out in pain and the damage was done. I learned that my training methods can sometimes be more harmful than helpful," he said quietly.

The young blonde looked down, and considered how bad he really wanted to be a shinobi. Naruto wanted to be a ninja of Konoha for his whole life. Even if he got injured, he would never give up and just roll over. He would recover from his injury.

"Don't worry Guy-sensei! I won't give up, even if I do get injured. I'll never give up! And I bet that Lee won't give up either!" Naruto cried.

Seeing Naruto's confident expression, the jonin smiled. "Don't worry though Naruto, I won't make that mistake again!" Guy finished with conviction.

Naruto was relieved to realize that the man cared so much for his students. The blonde spoke up, "It's ok Guy-Sensei. I'll train and work hard so that I can be Hokage one day! Just you watch!"

The green-clad shinobi grinned. "YES MY PUPIL! LET US TRAIN WHILE WE WAIT FOR THE OTHERS TO GET HERE! I CAN ONLY HOPE THAT THEY ARE AS YOUTHFUL AS YOU TODAY!" he bellowed.

Naruto smirked, 'At least he is back to his normal self again. It was kind of weird seeing him sad.'

"So what kind of training will we be doing, sensei? Will it be a spar? Or target practice, or something super cool?" Naruto questioned excitedly.

Might Guy laughed. "I'm going to show you a shinobi climbs a tree."

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A brunette girl with buns in her hair walked down the path to training field #19.

'I wonder who my new teammate is going to be,' the young ninja aimlessly thought to herself. 'I wonder what they will be like? I hope they aren't a total weakling or a crybaby. I hate timid people too.' The thirteen year old girl became preoccupied in thought until she sensed a presence off the left side of the path. Not taking any chances, the kunoichi took out three kunai from a weapons pouch.

She decided to go for the forceful and direct approach rather than take a chance with subtlety. "Show yourself! You have two seconds before I turn you into a human pincushion!" the girl threatened.

The figure, now caught, stepped out of the foliage with his hands up, palms facing out. "It is good to see you as well Tenten. I was wondering how long it would take you to notice me. It's at least an improvement over last time," the pale eyed boy mocked.

"NEJI! No fair!" Tenten pouted and returned her kunai to the holster. "You know I can't sense as good as you with your Byakugan. I don't have any abilities that make my life easy. I have to work for it. Plus now I'm all tense and stuff."

Neji just grinned. "I sensed you two minutes ago. I couldn't resist testing myself. I'm just better. Don't take it too harshly," he said condescendingly.

Tenten just scoffed and stormed off to go to the training field. She hated when the Hyuuga would talk about how much more "better or "superior" than she was. Tenten knew that Neji was a very good ninja, but did he really have to be such an ass? Tenten sighed in defeat and turned around.

"Are you coming or what?" she called to the pale eyed ninja.

Neji walked up to accompany his teammate. He remembered something she mentioned. "You said that you nervous. Why? It's just like any other day. Our sensei is just going to come up with some crazy taijutsu training for us to do. Then we'll probably go do a D rank and be done for the day. Just another day at the office Tenten," he said.

"You didn't even remember! Figures. We get our new genin teammate today," the brunette claimed. "What if he sucks? What if he's worse than Lee?" she panicked.

Neji vaguely remembered Guy telling them they were due for a new teammate. "Yeah, so what? Lee was pretty lame. Well, I guess he was getting pretty good at taijutsu before the accident last week," he replied.

"He can still be a ninja! He just needs to be seen by a medical specialist!" Tenten exclaimed. "If anybody can bounce back from an injury like that, it would be that goofball," she said.

"Be that as it may Tenten, he's not going to be our teammate anymore, and we'll be able to handle a new genin from the academy. Sensei will bring him up to speed fast, especially with the chuunin exams coming up. So don't worry," the boy argued.

"Fine, I just don't want anyone to hold me back," complained Tenten.

"Plus, we won't have to deal with Lee and sensei's antics anymore," the Hyuuga added as an afterthought.

"Yeah, that's true Neji. Maybe this won't be so bad after all," she reasoned.

The two arrived at the training field, looking forward to the day's training. Tenten was looking forward to meeting the new member of the team.

Might Guy was standing just inside the entrance when he noticed the pair walking towards him. "EXCELLENT!" the man in green boomed. "We'll start our training right away. First though, go meet our new teammate! He's over there practicing," finished Guy. He pointed to a grove of trees at the far side of the training ground. "I have to go prepare today's training! Bring him back over here in five minutes after you introduce yourselves." He excitedly took off sprinting towards the opposite side of the training ground.

Tenten pulled on Neji's shirt. "C'mon, let's go! Don't you want to meet him?" she said excitedly.

"I'm coming, don't get crazy on me Tenten," the pale eyed boy replied dryly.

They arrived outside the side the grove, unsure of how to approach the situation. Naruto was trying to walk up a tree using the chakra on his feet without much success. He was running about half of the way up the fifteen foot tall tree before falling back down.

Outside the grove, Tenten groaned. "Man, this stinks. We got a total scrub! He doesn't even have good chakra control yet!" she complained.

"Additionally, he looks like a shorter and blonde version of Lee. With an orange version of the hated uniform to boot!" Neji shuddered. Guy-sensei had forced them to wear the dreaded thing the first week on the team until he had deemed them worthy to wear their ninja clothes of choice. It was the worst week of his life. Lee, however had grown so attached to the uniform, that he made it his standard ninja gear, just like their eccentric sensei.

"Well," Tenten began, "We have to bring him for training sooner or later."

"Yeah."

They both walked into the grove. Naruto was about a third of the way up the tree when Neji called out.

"HEY YOU IN THE ORANGE!"

Naruto lost his focus, fell back down the tree about five feet, and landed with a thud.

"OOF!"

Scratching the back of his head, the blonde looked up to see a pale eyed boy and a brunette girl with buns in her hair around his age. Remembering his manners, Naruto stood up and greeted the two.

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki! Who are you guys?" Then he remembered they made him lose his concentration. "And what the hell was that for? I was training!"

The girl spoke first. "I'm Tenten. It's nice to meet you."

Then the pale eyed boy spoke up. "I'm Neji of the Hyuuga. We are your new teammates," he said condescendingly. "The reason I yelled for you is that Guy-sensei wants us in the center of the field for training. Now let's go." They both turned and headed back to the center of the field.

Naruto wasn't sure what to think of his new team mates. Tenten seemed to be okay, but that pale-eyed kid reminded him too much of Sasuke from the academy. _What is it with people with weird eyes? Does that automatically make them jerks? _Then Naruto realized the pair wasn't wearing the itchy uniform that he was currently sporting.

"Hey!" Naruto yelled. Neji and Tenten turned. "How long do I have to wear this stupid thing? It itches really really bad!"

Neji and Tenten shuddered as they knew it was all too true from experience.

Tenten spoke up, "It depends. Prove yourself and sensei will let you wear normal ninja gear. Shouldn't be too hard for you right?" she taunted.

Naruto was not one to back down from a challenge. "Alright then! I'll have my normal clothes back in no time! Let's go train!" he said excitedly as he raced ahead of the pair.

Tenten looked over to Neji. "Well, at least he doesn't plan on wearing it forever," she pointed out.

Neji just shrugged and walked forward to meet their sensei. Might Guy was waiting for them with a smile.

"Have you gotten acquainted? GOOD! I HOPE YOUR YOUTHFUL BODIES ARE READY FOR TRAINING!" the Green Beast of Konoha bellowed.

Neji and Tenten groaned. Naruto nodded excitedly.

"EXCELLENT! Now, Naruto it's time for your first test!" exclaimed Might Guy excitedly.

Naruto groaned. He HATED tests.

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**Please read and review, or send me a PM if you have any questions.**

**Steeltoedsandal**


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